We’re big fans of Vanguard, but admittedly, investing in Vanguard funds is a bit more complicated than using a Robo Advisor. In this article, we break down what we think of Vanguard’s 8 best funds while balancing both performance and cost.

If you’re looking for a deeper dive into our logic as well as some colorful commentary than check out the podcast episode we did on this:

Before we jump in, it’s important to mention why we are focusing so heavily on fees here. Due to their exponential nature, fees of just 1% can cause you to lose up to 25% of your earnings. That’s pretty horrendous and often what turns investors on to Vanguard in the first place.

I also highly suggest you check the fees on your accounts via the free Personal Capital fee analyzer. In addition to running simulations, the analyzer pinpoints all of the overly fee-hungry funds across your accounts – retirement or otherwise.

The difference between an Index Fund (ETF) and a Mutual Fund

First, let’s quickly discuss what an Index Fund (ETF) and a Mutual Fund are. Who better to ask then Vanguard themselves?

An ETF is a collection (or “basket”) of tens, hundreds, or sometimes thousands of stocks or bonds in a single fund.

If you’ve ever owned a mutual fund—particularly an index fund—then owning an ETF will feel familiar because it has the same built-in diversification and low costs.

In other words, if you want to automate your investing, then you use a Mutual Fund. If you want cheaper fees over time and don’t mind making contributions every month, then you should choose an ETF. I use ETFs because I don’t mind making investments manually and fees are the worst.

We often get asked how much you need to invest in Vanguard. If you’re investing in an ETF, then all you need is $1. If you’re investing in a Vanguard Mutual Fund, then the minimum initial investment is between $1,000 and $3,000.

Total Stock Market (ETF) – VTI

This ETF is Vanguard’s flagship fund and in our opinion, their best. It’s a blend of Large, Mid and Small cap companies in the US. It’s the lowest fee we’ve ever seen on a fund, and it’s mostly because the fund tracks a few smaller indexes allowing it to be largely automated.

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Target Retirement 2050 Fund (Investor Shares) – VFIFX

This fund is a lifecycle fund, so it starts out with most stocks and slowly tapers into bonds over time. The point is you take on risk now while you’re young and slowly reduce risk as you reach retirement age, so big market swings don’t wipe out your retirement money.

While this fund isn’t their best regarding the fee, it covers a much-needed gap in most people’s portfolio. As you know, we’re big fans of buy and hold, and this fund fits in there perfectly.

The number in the fund name, like “2050”, corresponds to your “typical” retirement date – usually, that’s when you’re 59 1/2. We often find ourselves picking funds with dates well past typical retirement age, so we get something a bit more growth-focused early on.

500 Index Fund (Admiral Class) – VFIAX

This fund was the industries first for individual investors. Invest in 500 of the biggest, baddestcompanies based in the US. By definition, this fund is filled with the best Large Cap companies, and since it focuses on the biggest companies in the US, it’s the closest to tracking the US economy.

REIT Index Fund (Admiral Shares) – VGSLX

Why own a property and rent it when your money gets stuck in the home, and there is so much work to be done? Instead, invest in a REIT and take rental profit and liquidity. This index fund is not just a REIT but a fund of many REITs, so you’re heavily diversified in the rental game.

Note: You won’t find much yield here which is a bit of a drag considering real estate is a solid income play. As a replacement for the income portion of your portfolio, we recommend Fundrise. Currently, their yield is 2.196x that of the Vanguard REIT.

Compared to VGSLX, Fundrise sticks to mid-size deals overlooked by huge funds and as a result, provides a markedly higher return. You can also opt to concentrate on income or appreciation focused funds.

Total Bond Market (ETF) – BND

Any well-balanced portfolio has bonds in it. They’re much less sexy than stocks but are also much less risky. When you’re young, 10% of your portfolio should be in something similar to BND, and as you get older, you’ll increase that percentage significantly. All the bonds that are in this fund are investment grade, and you should aim to hold this fund in the medium to long term based on its contents.

In preparation for market corrections or as we see them, investment opportunities, we tend to hold more bonds. Since long-term bond funds, rose ~20% in price in 2008 we see this as a win-win.

Since bonds tend to do better when the stock market is doing poorly, we want our Opportunity Funds to be full of them.

We recommend keeping your Opportunity Fund in a Smart Saver account. It’s roughly 80% US Treasuries and 20% long-term bonds. The account’s return often handily beats the highest-yielding savings accounts of the moment.

Strategic Equity Fund (Investor Shares) – VSEQX

Like the Growth Index fund but smaller companies, potentially higher growth and a large portion of the fund’s composition is selected by a computer. The fee is the highest here because proportionately the most amount of work goes into running this fund. 0.29% isn’t a big fee by a long shot, but I do think it’s important to note.

Also, again, this one’s the riskiest of the bunch. Of your Vanguard investments, we wouldn’t recommend making this one more than 10% of the total amount you invest.

Total International Stock Index Fund (Investor Shares) – VGTSX

Similar in approach to our #1 choice, VTI, only this fund focuses only on companies outside the US. The fund covers both developed and emerging markets.

It’s pretty volatile, so we keep it as a small portion of our portfolio to help offset our heavy US exposure.

Vanguard Fund Tracking and Monitoring

Manage your cash and optimize your investments in one place. With Personal Capital you can analyze your 401k to better diversify your holdings and reduce fees. I had no idea I was paying over 1% of my assets in fees every year but with there help I was able to get it down below 0.3%.

Once you have all of your accounts linked, you can also leverage their Retirement Planner to plot out exactly what your retirement would look like. Using a Monte Carlo simulation, they determine how likely it is that you’ll reach the level of income in retirement that you’re hoping for.

I’ve been using Personal Capital since 2013, and I haven’t found a better free online tool for building and managing wealth.

Vanguard Select Funds

Vanguard created a short list of their funds called the Vanguard Select Funds. One interesting thing about the list is how they determine what funds get on it:

The Vanguard Portfolio Review Department evaluates our low-cost fund lineup on an ongoing basis to determine the funds selected. This in-house team of investment professionals evaluates the funds using a proprietary screening process and criteria. – Vanguard Select Funds

So, basically, they’re hand-picked using voodoo. I will say that a lot of their most expensive funds (where they can make the most money) are on that list like the Windsor II who’s fee is 0.34%.

It’s worth mentioning that most of the funds on our list are on their list with the exception that we excluded the high-cost funds. There are a billion studies that show there is no correlation between a high cost and a high return. That’s why we focus on “shooting for the average” on the show, easily the best bang for your buck given the risk.